The Crux Point
by AsianScaper
Summary: Whatever happened to Kira Nerys and Gul Dukat? Set during the fall of the Cardassian home-world. Constructive word sparring between the arch-enemies and...other things.


**Title:** _The Crux Point_   
**Author:** AsianScaper   
**Disclaimer:** Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its characters belong to Paramount.   
**Rating:** G   
**Category:** Drama   
**Feedback:** Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@edsamail.com.ph   
**Summary:** Whatever happened to Kira Nerys and Gul Dukat? Set during the fall of the Cardassian home-world. Nope, this isn't a pairing...just constructive word sparring between the arch-enemies.   
**Spoilers:** None   
**Archiving:** Anywhere, just tell me where it's at please.   
**Dedication:** To the wonderful cast and crew of DS9.   
**Author's Note:** This is hefty stuff with highly experimental language (I haven't written in a month!). I don't have extensive knowledge on DS9 in particular, so please forgive me if you find any inconstancies (which you will). Feel free to point them out. The story itself didn't turn out the way I first envisioned it to be but it's a hardy story of idealism in the growing tandem of hate. I hope you enjoy. Cheers! 

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They were a detracted array of colors, blind to their own beauty yet wondrously bathed in their ignorance of speed and distance's orifice. The light seeped through the horizon like an arch, a bitter moon amidst the staunch black of an indolent planet turning to a bland rift in the darkness of night. Appurtenances of unearthly beauty, ethereal like the mounted wings of those who filled the very dregs of their potential with deeds. 

It was a pretty sight, one that scoured Kira's eyelids with fire misconstrued. Self-flagellation had become an incipient doctrine and its epigram written in the weaning life of this tortured place. The planet sighed with every tortuous revolution, groaned to the divine hand which brought upon it movement, never complaining yet vibrating its hoarse throat to every push of life, reluctant, hopeful. A movement, which was a reflection of the exercise of other heavenly beauties, pitiful in its great pulchritude; it was an irony of derision. 

Bajor. Bajor was a drowning flame amidst the conflagration scouring its inhabitants. 

Kira Nerys took the burden from herself by denying the window her sight, shifting her view to the wide Promenade of Deep Space Nine where a variety of people blessed the feet beneath them with attitudes, moods, and principles. It was a mellifluous congregation, engaged in peace above the surface, yet cantankerous with a marrow of chaos beneath. 

Her wandering interest caught a Bajoran male, dressed simply yet walking with a grace he had no right to own. Agony reminded many to flee the elegance of honor. She had long abandoned it. Regret filled the murky depths of pasts and she turned to deny the apparent signs of healing. 

Staring once more into the abyss and reminded constantly that her shift was commencing soon by the insistence of her vigilant mind, she barely noticed the person who entered her personal space and took to standing beside her with an air of proclamation. 

"Good morning, Odo." 

"Good morning." Odo smiled faintly, his face constrained to the genius of change. 

It was a fond face, inclined to the most basic of natures: peace, justice, an innate sense of ideals. But there was that constant barb of sadness amidst the mastery of a human facade. 

Shape-shifters, despite the complaisance of their potent flesh, succeeded in nuances of expression. Odo's grim mask divulged the mild shadows of his opinion. They were hues of changing magnificence, hiding his ability to mold and sculpt with the molecules of his creation and at once, revealing the strength in a body almost fragile in poise. 

"I should start walking to Ops," Kira said, politely sidestepping and inviting him to walk with her. 

With both hands clasped behind her, she devoured the path with her senses. 

The sharp ministrations of Ferengi speaking in their own language were devious in its intonations, often revealing the shells of clandestine purpose. Their substance, however, was left unknown to be paid for in gold pressed latinum or in some other form of sinister profit. It was a mad exchange. 

Quark, the stocky Ferengi owner of the dabo tables, was laboring busily inside his bustling establishment. He crooned over the vast revenue from people's greed with a self-assured swagger: when he cleaned the table, when he served a drink, when he invited pride on a masterful gambit. The lunatic gremlin spoke covertly to a fellow cultivator of vice, pitiful in his loneliness. Greed, after all, was a desolate villain. It did not seek the partnership of co-operatives. 

Quark wiped a glass from the counter, smiling sweetly with assiduous intent and careful to temper his lustful barricade of looks when he glanced Kira's way. 

"Major Kira Nerys!" he piped, obviously pleased that a beautiful woman would bless the beginning of his day. He wove his way from the herd of avarice's followers, taking his place in the Promenade beside her. Giving Odo a rather hateful glance, he showed his teeth. 

It was not a pretty sight and his breath smelled of currency. 

"What do you want?" she snapped. 

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Can't I even greet you without rousing your suspicion?" His smile deepened unfavorably and Kira turned to go. Those malignant shades of flesh ill suited her intrinsic devices of honor. "Wait! I have something for you." He fidgeted slightly, poking a stubby finger into his breast pocket and extracting a small note in paper. He was dressed impeccably, as always, and his confident station filled his green overcoat with delight. Standing a few inches below most of Deep Space Nine's denizens, he was an insistent gnome who prodded and deplored. 

"I don't want anything from you, Ferengi scum." 

"Was that a racial slur? Oh come, come, Major!" Quark admonished, handing her the note. "I'm merely doing you a favor." The Ferengi grinned. "Come by later. A ratkajino on me, perhaps?" 

This time, she submitted to her insistent instinct to leave the foul knave to its pondering. "Forget it, Quark!" 

"You might want to consider it!" he shouted back. 

His knowing sneer communicated knowledge she did not possess. 

"I said forget it!" she hollered back, biting an amused smile as the little Ferengi shrugged and continued with his vocation. 

Odo and herself continued onward, taking a swift turbolift ride. Odo studied her and his eyes fell on the paper. The lights inside cast a tall shadow over her and though they blinked, the curtain of Odo's regard hurled a curious air. 

"Aren't you going to read it?" he asked. "Or throw it?" 

"If it's important station information, which I doubt it is, then I can't risk throwing it from a fleeting desire to spite the Ferengi fool." The humor did not escape Odo and his impressionable face declared amusement. "Here, why don't you have a look?" She shoved it into his hand. 

Odo received it reluctantly, like a noble gallant who had gained somebody else's treasure. "Nobody ever uses this classical mode of communication anymore," he commented. "I don't suppose…" He stopped in mid-sentence when he absorbed the contents. "It's a subspace frequency." 

She raised a brow and leaned towards him. "Can you read Cardassian script?" 

"Yes, why?" 

She pointed at an obscure part of the paper. "Does it say what I think it says?" Odo shifted the scroll to the gleam of the bulkhead. 

Grunting disapprovingly, with more than a little rancor, Odo hissed, "Dukat." 

"Dukat." The word was a bitter pill to swallow. "That pagh-wraith…" 

"Indeed." Staring at the vile name for milliseconds that would have meant an eternity for both, he finally breathed aloud. It was an almost Bajoran gesture, an emulation of sincere concern. "Kira, is there something I should know? Why would a Gul contact you, of all people, and give you a military frequency?" 

"I don't know. Maybe he wants me to drop him a call." 

"A call?" Odo exclaimed. 

The turbolift doors opened to deposit them in Ops, where the silence was a little disturbing. The Alpha shift was not due for arrival before another hour. Only a few Bajorans and a handful of Starfleet personnel garbed in the yellow of engineers were fickle in the treatment of noise. 

The hum of machinery, though considerably cured of the wicked cough of inefficiency, betrayed the faint traces of bloodshed, the harsh breath of Cardassians and their rancorous pace maltreating the titanium below. There was a dark, rustic, almost barbarous beauty to Cardassian design, though now it was softened considerably by the free, sterile attraction of Terran contemplation. "It's an Earth expression. I've heard O'Brien use it." 

"I know what 'dropping a call' is, Major. I just don't know why you would actually consider calling this disdainful Cardassian with a mere note to justify your response!" 

"Did I say I was going to, Odo?" she returned patiently, feeling the last remnants of her calm falling dumb on the floor. She did not bother to hear his answer. 

Odo watched her walk away, holding the paper vapidly, with a puzzled expression and a whiff of approval. He seemed consigned to trusting her as he disappeared into the turbolift. 

Kira, for her part, was grateful for his silence. 

Dukat was a walking, marmoreal nightmare of excellent proportions, both in body and in intellect. To admire his Cardassian features was a mere compromise. The superiority of his physique was a spectacle despite his crass armor, his neck enhanced with the bizarre nuance of scales. A feline stride exhibited tenacity and incredible endurance and in her recollections of darker days, his booted feet embraced the stair like it occupied them completely. 

A Galor class warship was out there, fleeing with variable speed in directions known to obscurity, with a dreadful captain besieging the ramparts of its terrible power. 

But in good sportsmanship, she opened the channel on a monitor, cursing heavily as static plagued the visuals. She could scarcely dissemble her hostility when a Cardassian regarded her with a contemptuous gaze. His Kardasi was trite, without the slight provincial accent of one she knew quite well. His voice, though hoarse, was homely and plagued with the inflection of one who knew more than what he revealed. The Universal Translator humored her with a raucous progression of Bajoran words. 

"This is Major Kira Nerys of Deep Space Nine," she said, her voice modulating itself into a haughty tone. 

The coarse Cardassian face stared at her doubtfully. Kira glared. "Don't pretend. Get the Gul before I do something you'd regret." 

And suddenly, her name registered. His mannerism suddenly relaxed in imitation of his commander. "Ah, Kira Nerys. Gul Dukat is expecting your transmission. Wait a moment." 

A few seconds of black accompanied her rising enmity. Then, with a sudden outpour of Cardassian script, the screen furtively merged into the impressive design of Dukat's face. She recognized the unpleasant animosity of distant, antiquated ghosts skimming the exteriors of her present. Her frown was suddenly evident and there, indeed, was a bitter flavor tormenting her throat. 

The depravity of Dukat's intellect perverted the graceful arch of his brow. Iniquity berated the mild gray of his eyes, candor often bathing them in bluish hues. His authority was difficult to ignore. It communicated with deliberate motion, a confidence marked by tranquil poise yet menacing in its placidity. It dwelled in the soft ministrations of his hands, in every unconscious blink of an eye, in a smile that bent his face to mirth and insidious intent. It was a constant dagger held upright, seizing its subjects of wit and oft bleeding them of words. 

"Major!" he greeted. He sounded extremely pleased. 

"Dukat," she rudely returned, impatience all but hidden. "What do you want?" 

"I didn't expect you to call," he continued, as if she had not spoken. "And since you have, then I suppose you were willing to share a few moments of peace with me? No, don't answer. I can see the candor in your face. And that is how I like you, Major." He peered at the fabrics of her uniform. "You look charming in your pips, Nerys." 

"I don't care how I look. Get to the point, Dukat." 

"Oh alright, before I spoil my welcome." He turned a crude shade of white before he spoke again and this time, that indisputable gaze was tormented with concern. A man like Dukat did not display immediate weakness and his complete disregard of her opinion now, was eating slowly into her rationale. The deep quality to his voice reverberated like the rumble of a thunderous waterfall. "I'm in a slight dilemma and there's a bit of a catch, shall we say, for getting me dead." 

"I'm long past feelings of intense hatred, Dukat, former Prefect of Bajor." Distaste marked his erstwhile title. "You know I'll never forgive you." Her effective emphasis on 'never' was impressive and the Gul was slightly taken aback by her blatant honesty. Her next words returned the sinister smile on his gray face. "I'd rather you drudge out reparation than die and escape punishment." 

"How absolutely noble! I'd like that too, Major, but it seems that a few things have been tough on the poor Gul. Regretfully, I couldn't console myself to your suggestion wholly. Although, I will die a painful death, which is a consolation for us all." Gul Dukat leaned back. Despite his projection of ease, it was worry that creased his well-manipulated folds. The smile, notwithstanding, existed merrily. 

Kira was unable to decide on his intent; the gravity was certainly there, though it poked and prodded against a fluid mien. He seemed almost cheerful. 

"What are you getting at, Dukat?" Her calm surprised her and Dukat studied the silence between them, wielding it almost obliviously. 

He regressed to looking at her more closely and she shifted in discomfort. His gray-blue eyes were meticulous in their study and she could discern the brief shadow of regret. Of what, she wondered? 

"A favor, Nerys." His smile deepened and he tilted his head forward. "A favor." 

"I don't know if I should laugh or cry." Kira was careful to keep her impressions to herself, ridding of the vile ripple in the frequencies of her irritation, amusement, and complete confusion. 

The short pause brought an instant respect to Dukat's careful gaze. "Very tactful, Major," he said. "Thank you." Kira's curiosity heightened at his declaration of gratitude. How very artful indeed. "Oh, you must be thinking that this is a feeble attempt to put you in my shoes." The glint of his teeth showed his glee at having read her mind. "Quite the contrary, actually. A favor, Major, and you will be rid of me. As a matter of fact, you already are." 

"Stop it with the highfalutin speeches." 

Dukat barely even nodded, choosing to listen to her at his own time. "As I told you, asking a favor from a Bajoran isn't exactly my idea of contemplating the noble future of the home-world. But this, my dear Major, is worth its terrible conclusion." 

He did not expect her to speak and from the brittle property of his munificent grin, he could not tolerate any abject comments from her. "I am, shall we say, in a bit of a impasse. I'm sure that you, despite your low educational attainment, would understand completely." His mockery threatened to burden the barriers of her control and she felt her lips twitch in injury. "But come, let us not make this tortuously personal. Though I have to admit, it already is." She was ready to pounce on the monitor and his maddening gaze of proclivity heightened the moisture between her tightening palms. She could see that the Cardassian pagh-wraith was hiding something. His inability to be direct with it certainly amused her yet his manner commiserated her patience. 

Silence stretched like gauze upon a festering wound and Kira was glancing fervently into the laceration. This man was a criminal beyond the description of known diablerie. To her, he magnified the very bearings of death and manipulated their causes with strings too transparent to be perceived. 

Yet he spoke in a soft voice. It was unlike the bare mounds of bleeding flesh she was utterly used to. Gentle in its debate, Kira could define the faint traces of affection's profundity, gleaning at the edges of shattered glass. 

"Major," he mused. "We have been such fiendish opponents that many in our path find it amusing. Rather, your Starfleet friends find _you_ amusing, and I just happen to join the audience. No, no, I shouldn't laugh at your shortcomings, though my Cardassian descent certainly applies those principles with simple rage. It's in my blood, you see, though I suppose you don't think my excuses are enough to redeem me. I don't expect them to. Certainly not!" Kira almost shook her head though she watched avidly, with barely hidden ire. Dukat was a happy victim of wordplay. "And there are a few things that I do regret between us." He let the words sink in and suddenly Kira was frowning again. 

"What may those be, Dukat?" she growled. 

"That I did not have the pleasure of knowing you as your Starfleet associates do. Oh, not for the mere pleasure of it, Major, but for the very real reason I am about to employ you for." He gathered data PADD's from one of his subordinates, barely glancing at the other Cardassian. Dukat was a firm believer of the authority he held, a religion of strength and hauteur. Pressing and goading the PADD, he transmitted data that scrolled heavily on the right side of her screen. "I am sending you proper information about this task. My son requires sanctuary in Terok Nor." 

"Deep Space Nine," Kira interjected angrily. 

Dukat stared at her pointedly. "He is the sole heir of numerous estates and wishes to provide _Terok Nor_ -." He mentioned the station with a vicious slur. "-With a certain degree of Cardassian elegance. It will be a mutual exchange of culture and ideas. Something beneficial to us both, now that peace has been forged between our nations." The prevarication slandered the strain of courteous gravity between them. Neither was truly willing to admit that the Cardassians and the Bajorans would be predisposed to failing the abuse of concord's amenities. 

Kira replied bluntly, "I don't believe you, Dukat." 

"That is completely understandable, Major. However, in the light of my recent circumstance, it would be wise to do so." 

The Bajoran major made a gracious display of considering his offer, then said quietly, "What of the dilemma and the threat to your life?" 

Again, his smile completed the atlas of reptilian curves upon his symmetrical face. "If he does not step upon Terok Nor as his father so wishes, the family falls into ruin." There it was again, the regret and menial intelligence of sadness within the delicacy of his tongue. 

"Isn't that what I want, Dukat?" Ruthless and unforgiving, she did not bear time to pass for fear that his apparent concerns would sway her radically. She bred a high melody of justice, one tainted by hatred and a clear knowledge of abuse that had scoured the limited aches of her body and managed the limitless woe of her mind. "It's less than what you deserve. I don't wish to mingle with the fruit of your genetics." 

Suddenly, Gul Dukat was filled with a fierce concoction of paternal fervor and complete, barbarous confidence. His jaw tightened into a mane of ferocity his ridges sharpened to the tight clue of a damning fate as he rasped, "This stripling, Nerys, is but a boy. A youth! A child moldable by any means! I may be a coward and a truly beleaguered tyrant for saying this, but I'd rather he learn the meager proportions of the Bajoran intellect than wallow in the furnace of death!" 

"Whatever happened to your Cardassian honor?" Kira shot back. "You would never have considered the same if I were to give you my only son. And I'd rather kill him that have him tormented by the likes of you." 

"My holdings, Nerys, are a mere shadow of what they once were. My only son stripped of title and honor. My family fallen victim to the holocaust of a nation's defeat. There is nothing to his name or to mine. What I give will be emptiness in a container of appearances. Such things have no foundation yet are fruitful in the creation of one! I ask you, Nerys! Take him. If not for me, then for innocence's sake! I will not kill him. I cannot. For an unearthed wisdom cultivated in the grounds of your nation, I cannot! Do you understand, Nerys?" 

"Going native, are we?" she mocked. 

Dukat took it in stride. "Oh, go ahead, Major. Deride my fate. I couldn't care less. I've already accepted it. But my son's destiny has been offered its close and I don't intend to turn the key to his downfall. One earth day from now, I will be dead; hunted and impaled upon the crux of a true Cardassian retreat. I assure you, your heart will be floating on tranquil waters once you receive the news of my torture at the hands of my own people, blind with the rage I myself created. A blunt irony, a magnificent end to the tragedy of an empire long coveted and fast procured." 

"I could almost pity you." Kira's derision, however, was not as cooked to the simmering heat it used to be. The glacier of magnanimity was sliding generously into Dukat's evaporating cup. The Cardassian, for all his former pomp, seemed almost grateful for her commiserating tone. 

"Don't pity me, Nerys. Revel in my defeat. This was an ending orchestrated from antiquity by your Prophets." 

"Well deserved, too." 

Dukat was resigned enough to appreciate her faux pas. His impassioned speech spilled mettle and a vindictive repeal of the miscreant Kira had always envisioned the former Prefect of Bajor to be. 

His bass pronunciation was an odd consolation. "I always respected the Bajorans for their versatility…or rather, their lack of it." At those words, it was Kira's turn to hide the bend of her lips. 

Her vigor, though, was concentrated elsewhere. "I'll never forgive you, Dukat." 

The former Prefect sighed. "I know," he murmured. "I know." He appealed to her with the capacity of a man who forfeited moment's succor. "Just provide safe passage for the boy." 

"He may be dead before he even reaches Bajoran space." 

Closing his eyes, Dukat's shoulders sagged in response to her words and to the grievance, which caused the grains of sufferance. Behind his seat, one of his burly officers informed him of approaching Cardassian vessels. He waved the Cardassian away, building a façade for his crew. Warning klaxons made the world at the other side a hazy, misconstrued dream: the stage for a curtain's terminus and an act's expression of precious summary. 

His next words were cradles of his debacle and the scrawl upon the slate of courage unknown. 

"Thank you, Major Kira Nerys," he said, addressing her properly this time. The way he said her name, however offending it was in the past, was now ripe with esteem's fruit. 

Artless. Meaningful. So very human. Bajoran in its conciseness. Cardassian in its harsh quality. 

Squinting to see if indeed, she was real, Dukat bade her farewell with a genuine look of respect. "Good day, Major. Dukat out." 

The screen howled to the darkness and the void became a rising conundrum of pain. 

For hours hence, Kira Nerys waited, receiving transmissions of Cardassia's subjugation. Equality thrived within the measures of war, an equality between equilibriums of extremes. All were victims, including those who did not participate in it. The dire beauty of war and its magistrate of pity was its ability to beg for sympathy. 

Through the waterways of data and thought, she discovered that Dukat's son never reached the faint rhythm of Bajoran space. 

In her guileless care of foes, she found the bitterness of loss and the marred attribute of revenge folding the remains of hate into a dumb nothingness. It was a liberating feeling, filled with the bitter inhalation of humanity once thought to be nonexistent in the crass armor of Cardassian design. Perhaps, she would never forgive yet ghosts became all the more tangible at each subsequent telling. 

Gul Dukat was certainly one pagh-wraith who would haunt her to a tale's opposite. It was almost a comforting thought. 

*** 

It was another morning that met her open gaze with only the stark madness of eternity, shimmering at times, with the frailty of stars. 

"Dukat, Dukat," she berated. Sitting alone, she complained to one star out the window, chiding like an adult to a child. Promenade was beginning to be a busy place and she paused to stand from her hollow of contemplation. "You ruffian. You bloody, hellish Cardassian. I think you just saved me." 

Shaking her head, she turned. 

Odo was there, as he often was, to accompany her. "Good morning, Major," he greeted formally. 

"Odo. What a pleasant surprise." 

"Indeed. Shall I walk you to Ops?" 

"Maybe some other time." She sighed. "I need this moment alone." 

"Old ghosts, Major?" Odo asked. His eyes, though born of change, were stable in its certainty. 

"Oh yes. Old ghosts, of many races." 

The constable grunted. "Good for you Major. More pathways to redemption, I suppose?" 

"Ahh." She wagged a finger at him. "Redemption? Not quite, Constable. It's a cornerstone for the path but the saving part comes entirely from me. Wouldn't you agree?" 

Kira did not see him nod in assent as she walked past, did not know if the towering constable would fortify her beliefs with his own discretion. One thing was for sure, though. She had just taken the road less traveled by and increased the bulwark of her faith. 

At least that, indeed, was a comforting thought. 

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**-The End-**


End file.
